The year is 1749. The place is 三好市 広島県 Miyoshi town in Hiroshima.
Heitaro was a samurai of the domain.
He and his friend Gonpachi tried a contest of courage, involving an encounter with various Yokai.
This was a popular summer game reminding people of the . Hyakki Yagyō 百鬼夜行 "The Night Parade of a Hundred Demons" .

In May they went up to 比熊山 Higumayama and lit 100 candles. Now each one of them had to tell a Yokai ghost story and after each story, one candle was put out.
After the last story was told the last candle was blown out and the two waited in the darkness for any Yokai to make their appearance.
Anyway,
no Yokai appeared for some time that night, so they went back home. But come July, the monsters begun to appear to haunt them . . .
And this story is told in the famous

For one month, various Yokai appeared day and night, trying to frighten Heitaro, but he never lost his calm and slept well at night.
For example, a huge toad appeared in his cupboard in the evening, with a red rope around its body . . . so Heitaro grabbed the rope and slept . . .
The next morning, the toad showed its real appearance, just the usual big box for cloths in the cupboard.

Another evening, a woman with a long neck came out of the Tokonoma niche from his room
and tried to lick him all night.
But he just ignored her completely and slept well till morning.

Eventually the Yokai gave up, praised his fearlessness and - in a swoop - disappeared from his garden.

This story soon became a picture scroll for all to enjoy.稲生物怪録絵巻 Ino Mononoke Roku Emaki.

An illustration from “Hyakki Yagyo Emaki,” a narrative scroll painting depicting a parade of yokai (Provided by the city government of Miyoshi, Hiroshima Prefecture)

MIYOSHI, Hiroshima Prefecture--
An enthusiast’s extensive collection of paraphernalia related to the "yokai" supernatural beings of Japanese folklore is to be housed in its own museum as part of efforts to attract more visitors here.
The city government decided to construct a purpose-built museum to showcase about 3,000 yokai items amassed by Koichi Yumoto forming the main attraction. The museum is scheduled to open in 2018.

“I want to hand down to posterity Japan’s original culture generated by Japanese people’s imagination,” Yumoto, 66, of Tokyo's Edogawa Ward, has said.
He started collecting yokai-related works of art about 30 years ago, and has spent more than 100 million yen ($882,450) on his hobby to date.

Miyoshi, located in a mountainous region, has been seeking ways to revitalize itself by taking advantage of the local “mononoke” evil spirits culture.

The area is famous as the setting for “Ino Mononoke Roku,” a story about a young man who battles with evil spirits from the Edo period (1603-1867).

Yumoto’s collection provided a perfect opportunity, and the city teamed up with the yokai enthusiast who had been looking for a facility to display and manage his collection.
Yumoto signed a deal with the city at the end of 2016 to hand over his collection for free on condition that the city would establish a museum specializing in yokai.
The total project cost is estimated at 1.2 billion yen.

“I think yokai are happy about finally having their own museum,” said Yumoto.

Miyoshi Mayor Kazutoshi Masuda expressed his gratitude, saying: “We greatly appreciate the donation of such precious materials. We would like to invigorate the city by utilizing the collection.” - reference source : Asahi Shinbun 2017 -

Miyoshi Fudoki-no-oka History and Folklore Museum
Displays on the history, folklore and archeology of the Chugoku mountain region.
If you have kids who are going to Japanese school or have a high level of Japanese language skills, there are quite a few fun worksheet activities and quizzes to try.
Fragments of the yokai hobgoblins which appear in the Edo-era Ino Mononoke Roku ghost story set in Miyoshi are also scattered around the museum – find them all and stamp your notebook with a special stamp. - source : ethiroshima.com/museums-attractions... -

He painted this scroll while he was living in 丹後 Tango, 京都府宮津市 Kyoto, Miyazu city from 1754 - 1757.
The original did not show any colors, but a replica (like the above copy) introduced some colors to it.

A replica had been found in 1928 in 北田紫水文庫, a library.
There are 8 scrolls, each showing a Yokai with an explanation, which Buson might have encountered during his extensive travels in Japan.
The Yokai paintings are rather humorous and not so much scary, maybe reflecting Buson's history of a 俳画 Haiga painter.

鎌倉若八幡銀杏の化物 Kamakura Waka-Hachiman Gingko Tree Monster
化け銀杏の精（ばけいちょうのせい）/ 化け銀杏の霊（ばけいちょうのれい）
Its face, arms and legs are yellow. It wears a black robe and hits a prayer gong.
In former times, the Gingko tree was seen as unlucky. If someone planted it in his home, disaster would follow soon.

- quote - Shirime 尻目 lit. "buttocks eye" - “butt eye”
is a strange yōkai with an eye in the place of his anus.
The story goes as follows:
Long ago, a samurai was walking at night down the road to Kyōto, when he heard someone calling out for him to wait. "Who's there?!" he asked nervously, only to turn around and find a man stripping off his clothes and pointing his bare buttocks at the flabbergasted traveler. A huge glittering eye then opened up where the strange man's anus should have been.

This creature was so liked by the haiku poet and artist Buson, he included it in many of his yōkai paintings. - source : wikipedia -

京、かたびらが辻ぬっぽり坊主のばけもの。 めはなもなく、一ツの眼、尻の穴に有りて、 光ることいなづまのごとし。

“In Kyoto, at the Katabira crossroads, there is a monster called nuppori-bōzu.
It has no eyes or nose, but a single eyeball, located in its butthole, which shines like lightning.”MatthewMeyer.net

- quote - The Life and Death of Shigeru Mizuki
Mizuki was much more than a comic artist. He was a philosopher. A visionary. A bon vivant of the everyday. Japan’s most important folklorist since Yanagita Kunio, Mizuki wrote and illustrated an 12-volume series of world folklore called Mujara that earned him membership in the Japanese Society of Cultural Anthropology. - source : Zack Davisson -

A historical novel about the Heian period, where special 陰陽師 Onmyoshi demon experts had to protect the capital of Heiankyo.
The hero Yuge no Koreo 弓削是雄 had to go all the way to 陸奥 Mutsu in Tohoku to fight with 烏天狗 Karasu Tengu.

Tengu 天狗 - kaii 怪異 strange things
In the mountains of Tanba 丹波 Tamba the Tengu have their own "road" and if people happen to built a home there, they will be cursed.
The Confucian scholar 伊藤仁斎 Ito Jinsai (1627 - 1705) once built his home there, but every night there was a huge noise and rumbling and he could not live there.
He sold the home to someone who did not know about this (and Jinzai did not tell him either) but - oh wonder - it all kept quiet with the new owner.

- quote - Itō Jinsai (伊藤仁斎, August 30, 1627, Kyoto, Japan – April 5, 1705, Kyoto),
who also went by the pen name Keisai, was a Japanese Confucian philosopher and educator. He is considered to be one of the most influential Confucian scholars of seventeenth century Japan, and the Tokugawa period (1600–1868) generally, his teachings flourishing especially in Kyoto and the Kansai area through the final years of the Tokugawa shogunate. - - - More in the WIKIPEDIA !

bakemono yashiki 妖怪宅地 home with monsters - kaii 怪異 strange things
In Kyoto there was a home with monsters (化物屋敷 bakemono yashiki). When the owner tried to lend it to someone, ever for very cheap, after 5 or 10 days a Yoki would make its appearance and scare them away.
Once a scholar with a strong mind lived there and for 2, 3 months all kept quiet. Later sometimes when he washed his hands outside in the hand basin, the Yoki would grab his hand, but that was all.

. nue 鵺, 鵼, 恠鳥, or 奴延鳥 the Nue monster .
a monster beast with the head of a monkey, breast of a Tanuki badger, scales like a dragon, a tail of a serpent and hands and feet like a tiger. His voice was that of a Nue.

- quoteRaiju is the companion of Raijin, the Shinto god of lightning.
While the beast is generally calm and harmless, during thunderstorms, it becomes agitated and leaps about in trees, fields, and even buildings (trees that have been struck by lightning are said to have been scratched by Raiju's claws).

Another of Raiju's peculiar behaviors is sleeping in human navels and thus harms the person in whose belly the demon is resting. Superstitious people therefore often sleep on their stomachs during bad weather, but other legends say that Raiju will only hide in the navels of people who sleep outdoors.

Its body is composed of lightning and may be in the shape of a cat, fox, weasel, or wolf. It may also fly about as a ball of lightning (the creature might be an attempt to explain the phenomenon of lightning). It's cry sounds like thunder. - source : yokai.wikia.com/wiki/Raiju

If people walk around at night, sometimes it is as bright as daylight. They call it tenbi 天火（てんび） fire from heaven
In 岐阜県 Gifu 揖斐郡 in the Ibi district during summer evenings there is a pillar of light toward heaven.
They call it tenpi 天火（てんぴ）fire from heaven.

During a thunderstorm, lightning strikes and the Raiju climbs up a tree.
Lightning is also called tenpi 天火 "fire from heaven".

kutooken 狗頭犬 Kutoken / 狗頭の神. 狗頭の神 Dog-headed Deity
Sometimes on a fine day there is a very sudden thunderbolt and then it is fine again.
Once a tsuki 槻 keyaki tree begun to burn for seven days. When they checked its ashes, the villagers found three bones of a Kutoken yokai dog.

.......................................................................
In a home in Senboku, the Raiju (lightning) stuck a home and it burned for seven days and seven nights.

There was once a schoolteacher with a scar of a burn on her cheek. When she was a child, there was a thunderbolt and the Raiju Yokai got wild and scratched her cheek.
Now the children call her Yuudachi sama 夕立様, Miss Evening Rain.
Yudachi evening rain often comes with a thunderbolt.

At the temple Daishooji 大聖寺 Daisho-Ji
Around 1720 at a small shrine within the temple compound there was a Raiju which could not find its way back to heaven. The priest stuck a long pole in the ground to help it climb up.
When the officials heard the story, they thought the temple must be blessed especially and gave it a lot of land as special reward.

On the night of the 地蔵盆 Jizo Bon rituals
six or seven friends were standing outside talking, when suddenly a 天火 heavenly fire appeared.
It became all light and when they looked around they saw something like a piece of burning magnesium, which made a sound and climbed from the middle of the fields right up to heaven.

If there is a loud thunder during the nawashiro 苗代 rice nursery season, the Raiju comes down from heaven and destroys the fields. If there is thunder, the villagers walk through the mountains and make noise with bamboo sticks to drive the beast out.
Others place bamboo poles in the rice nurseries. This would help the Raiju to find its way back to heaven before doing harm to the field.

Kaminari is called オカンダチ Okandachi in the local dialect.
If a tree is struck by lightning and shows a scar from it, they say its was the nail of the Raiju Yokai, which tried to climb up the tree to reach the sky.

A man from 鬼池村 Oniike village went out fishing, but the villagers did not like him, treated him badly and eventually he died.
Since then, every night there was a ball of fire flying over the 鬼池 Oni-Ike "Demon pond" .
Once the fire fell into the shrubs and it begun to burn, in fact, the whole village bunrnt down. The villagers thought this must have been a curse of the fisherman.
So they built a statue of 地蔵尊 Jizo Bosatsu on the place where he died and prayed for his soul, expecially on winter nights.

On 加賀国の白山 Mount Hakusan of the Kaga domain and on 信濃国の浅間山 Mount Asama of the Shinano domain there live Raiju. They look a bit like a fox. When they get caught, people bring them to Kyoto or Osaka to show for money. They place them in a net of iron and do not give them anything to eat or drink. When there seems to come an evening shower, the hair of the Yokai begin to stand on edge and their owners place a straw mat over the iron net.

There is also a powerful birdkaminari no tori 雷の鳥 Thunder Bird
which eats the Raiju. Many of these birds live on Mount Hakusan.

In a cave in the middle of the mountain lives the 雷獣 Raiju, venerated as Raijin 雷神 the Deity of Thunder.
Near the hole there is a lot of white hair, almost like that of a cat.
This Deity has the form of a small dog and others say the hair looks like that of a tanuki 狢 badger. The space around his eyes is black, the nose long and small and its tail short.
The skin on the soles of his feet is soft like that of a child and it has five legs.
In winter it digs a hole and sleeps.
It is usually quite gentle and likes humans, but when it rains, it becomes wild.

Once in a year with very strong rain two beasts came floating down the river, quite dead.
Their eyes were large like that of a dog, their fur ashen and the head long. The tail looked like that of a fox and the nails like that of a hawk.

Once there was a thunderbolt at 虚空蔵山 Mount Kokuzo-Yama. But Kokuzo Bosatsu caught the Yokai and told him "If you do that once again at this place, I will not let you go unpunished!"
Since that time, there has not been a thunderbolt any more.
The villagers were very pleased about it and now have a festival every year on January 13.
In other parts they also know that if you venerate Kokuzo Bosatsu, there will be no thunderbolt.

In the Sage region, the 天火 Tenpi is called hi no tama 火の玉 ball of fire.
This ball with a long tail flies slanting, trying to hide. But it is said to cause fires and if people see it, they use drums and ritual bells to drive it away.

If the 天火 Tenpi enters a home, someone will become ill. So they drive it away with drums and ritual bells. Sometimes even the weather improves after this.

On the land of the Nagai family in 岩槻 Iwaki the Raiju came down, run around in the fields, but the villagers got hold of him. It did not eat anything and died soon in his capture. So they took the carcass and stuffed it. It looked like a small dog, with sharp nails like a bear.

When a thunderbold comes dow, its like the Raiju scratching a tree and the scars of its claws can be seen on the tree bark. Some villagers even say they have seen the Raiju run up a tree after lightning has stuck it.

At 烏山 Mount Karasuyama there lived a strange beast, a Raiju. It looked like a mouse but was about as big as a weasel. During summer there were often holes in the mountain and this beast showed its head. When it saw a suitable cloud, this Raiju jumped on it and made its way to heaven.
Sometimes hunters went after this creature in spring, but never caught it.

During the Edo period there had been a thunderbolt hitting a boat on the sea. After that they found a strange beast like an otter on the boat.
Since it was such an unusual being, they thought it might be a Raiju Yokai and they put the creature in a 見世物 curiosity show.

yabi 矢火 "fire arrow"
A "fire arrow" is read. The red light is not a heavenly sign of something unusual to come. If the light has a bluish tail as it flows over the river, and looks like a ball of fire, then someone in the village has died.
Sometimes it takes time after someone watched a bluish ball of light until the news of a death is given.

Taichoo, Taichō 泰澄上人 Saint Taicho Shonin / Taicho-Daishi 泰澄大師 (682 ?683 - 767)
Etsu no Daitoku 越の大徳 - Great Man of Virtue from Etsu
Unpen Shoonin 雲遍上人 Saint Unpen Shonin
Shiramine Daisoojo 天狗 白峰大僧正 Tengu Shiramine Daisojo
He was a teacher of Buddhism and later became a Tengu at Mount Hakusan.
He was the second son of the samurai family of Mikami no Yasuzumi 三神安角（みかみのやすずみ）and became a monk at age 14.

He practised austerities at 愛宕山 Mount Atago together with En no Gyoja 役小角 En no Ozunu, where they met three Tengu and got special teachings and training.
While they were at the mountain, a strong rain hindered their meditation and they prayed for help.
Suddenly three Great Tengu 大天狗 appeared, Nichiryo from India 天竺（インド）の日良, Zegai from China 唐の善界 and Tarobo from Japan 日本の太郎坊.
"We have protected the Buddhist Law for more than 2000 years and helped the people who lived there."
Then they disappeared.
Taicho declared the huge sugi cedar tree 杉 where this happened「清滝四所明神」Kiyotaki Shisho Myojin and on orders from the Court built a mausoleum for the emperor where the Deity 愛宕大権現 Atago Gongen was venerated, now 白雲寺 Hakuun-Ji（愛宕神社 Atago Jinja).
(This legend became popular in the Edo period.
And thus 愛宕山太郎坊 Tarobo from Mount Atago became the Boss of all Japanese Tengu.)

In 717, the great Buddhist monk and teacher, Taicho Daishi, guided by a woodcutter Gongoro Sasakiri, climbed high up Mount Hakusan, an isolated sacred mountain, in order to meditate.
One night,
while Taicho was sleeping after beginning his rigorous regime of spiritual exercises, the guardian deity of Mount Hakusan appeared to him in a dream and said:
‘Lying about twenty-three kilometers from the foot of the mountain is a village called Awazu. There you will find an underground spring of hot water with wondrous, curative powers, which have been bestowed upon it by Yakushi Nyorai, the Divine Healer. However, the villagers are unaware of this blessing. Go down from the mountain and go to Awazu. With the people of the village, unearth the hot spring and it will serve them forever.’”

- quote - Hooshi Ryookan 法師旅館 Ryokan Hotel Hoshi
石川県小松市粟津温泉 Ishikawa, Komatsu, Awazu Onsen
The roots of (Hooshi) Hoshi, the most ancient inn all over the world are truly divine. According to legend in 717 a noted monk Taicho hiked high up Mt Hakusan, a saint and isolated mountain. While Taicho was asleep one night after starting his rigid training exercises, the God of Hakusan turned up while sleeping.

He ordered him to go to a village known as Awazu as there was an underground hot spring with wondrous powers. The people of the village did not know of the good fortune. After dreaming Taicho made his way down to the village and uncovered the gem laying underneath the earth’s surface. Afterwards the priest requested his disciple to build and operate a spa at the site.

Generation after generation, Hoshi proprietors got the name 善吾楼 Zengoro Hoshi. The first Zengoro guided Taicho Daishi to the top of Mt. Hakusan. Quite a few people undergoing illnesses visited the spa built. People started making donations. He then used the money to expand the services he offered. - reference source : nvisionservices.com -

- quote - Kippoji Temple 吉峰寺
It is believed that this temple was established by Taicho Daishi (the great teacher). Dogen Zenji stayed at this Dojo (Buddhist's training school) from the start of his days in the Echizen province. ...
... there is also 'Kaizan Zazen Ishi' which is a rock where it is said that Dogen sat in Zen meditation. Next to it is a spring flowing from Mt. Hakusan.

Yoshinogatake - Zaosan
This mountain is one of top 5 mountains in Echizen. Many holy and miraculous spots are found there, such as 'Zao Gongendo' that Taicho Daishi is said to have enshrined. Ruins of an accommodation for the people who were training on the mountain during the Heian period can be found here, along with the holy spring called 'Akamizu', which mountain ascetics in training offered to the gods and Buddha. - source : zennosato.jp/310_annai -

- quote - Power of Water: Mt. Haku
Height: 2702.14m
Location: Gifu, Fukui and Ishikawa prefectures
Mt. Haku was first scaled in 717 by Shintoist Taicho, and has since then attracted many worshippers. - source : jpninfo.com -

The "White Mountain" has three important peaks
Gozenpō 御前峰 Gozenpo (2,702 meters), Ōnanjimine 大汝峰 Onanjimine (2,684 meters) and 剣ヶ峰 Kengamine (2,677 meters). A bit further away is 別山 Mount Bessan.
Taicho climbed the moutani with a disciple and eventually became 白峰大僧正という天狗 the Great Tengu Priest of Shiramine.